Sunday, February 17, 2013

Best of the Genea-Blogs - 10 to 16 February 2013

Hundreds of genealogy and family history bloggers write thousands of posts every week about their research, their families, and their interests. I appreciate each one of them and their efforts.

My criteria for "Best of ..." are pretty simple - I pick posts that advance knowledge about genealogy and family history, address current genealogy issues, provide personal family history, are funny or are poignant. I don't list posts destined for the genealogy carnivals, or other meme submissions (but I do include summaries of them), or my own posts.

Here are my picks for great reads from the genealogy blogs for this past week:


*  Finding A Cousin - Kismet, Karma, Fate or Simple Simple Serendipity Made Possible by the New Golden Age of Genealogy?? by John D. Tew on the Filiopietism Prism blog.  John travels to be a geneablogger - I vote for simple serendipity.

*  Illinois Statewide Databases Online by Beth Foulk on the Genealogy Decoded blog.  This is a very helpful list.

*  Genealogy as Therapy by Amy Coffin on The We Tree Genealogy Blog.  Yes!!!  all the time.

*  Ancestor Disappeared? May Have Traveled Overseas by Kathleen Brandt on the a3Genealogy blog.  Kathleen shows some records for persons who might have died overseas or at sea.

*  Writing and Publishing Family History with Denise Levenick by Lynn Palermo on The Armchair Genealogist blog.  Lynn interviews Denise about her experiences writing and publishing her book.

*  Philippina's Choice by Judy G. Russell on The Legal Genealogist blog.  I love posts like this that expand my knowledge about legal issues and probate records.

*  Thought for the Day - Crowdfunding Genealogy by Blaine Bettinger on The Genetic Genealogist blog.  Blaine has excellent ideas on projects to crowdfund.  Can you think of more?

*  Follow Friday - Sutro Library or Not!! by Sandra Gardner Benward on the Root Cellar Sacramento Genealogical Society blog.  Sandra and a Root Cellar group took a trip to the new Sutro Library in San Francisco, and shows us the library in pictures and text.

*  They said no by GeneJ on the They Came Before blog.  GeneJ did the right thing, asked GenealogyBank for permission to post an image of a pre-1923 obituary.  I wonder why?

Several genea-bloggers have been posting their experiences on the Unlock the Past cruise Down Under.  It's been fun reading about their classes and sightseeing.  Here are the ones I've seen:

*  Louis Kessler on Louis Kessler's Behold Blog. Unlock the Past Cruise, Day 1;  Days 2, 3 and 4Day 5; Day 6

*  Jill Ball on the Geniaus blog:  Sydney Harbour; The More You Know...;  A Few Pics from Yesterday; Trove Tuesday - Modern Cruise Ship; Tuesday at Sea;  Touristing Takes Over;  R&R; Great Impromptu Session.

*  Helen V. Smith on the From Helen V. Smith's Keyboard blog:  3rd Unlock the Past Cruise 10 February 2013; Day 2;  Buried Treasures of the Parish Chest;  Tuesday Continued;   Day Four, Noumea; Days 5 & 6;

These genea-bloggers wrote weekly pick posts and news summary posts this week: 

*  Monday Morning Mentions by Lynn Palermo on The Armchair Genealogist blog.

*  Monday Recap for February 11, 2013 by Amanda on the Geni Blog.

* Blogs for Genealogists, February 8 by Michael Leclerc on the Mocavo Genealogy Blog.

*  Genealogy News Corral, Feb. 11-15 by Diane Haddad on the Genealogy Insider blog.

*  Follow Friday - Favorites for February 15, 2013 by Heather Kuhn Roelker on the Leaves for Trees blog.

*  Moonshine, Civil War, Newspapers, and an Assassin. It's Follow Friday! by Anne Gillespie Mitchell on the Finding Forgotten Stories blog.

*  Follow Friday - Fab Finds for February 15, 2013 by Jana Last on Jana's Genealogy and Family History Blog.

*  Friday Finds - 02/15/13 by Julie Cahill Tarr on the GenBlog blog.

*  Blogs for Genealogists, February 15 by Michael Leclerc on the Mocavo Genealogy Blog.

*  Weekly Genealogy Picks: Feb. 10-16 by John Newmark on the TransylvanianDutch blog.

I encourage readers to go to the blogs listed above and read their articles, and add their blogs to your Favorites, Google Reader, RSS feed or email if you like what you read. Please make a comment to them also - all bloggers appreciate feedback on what they write.

Did I miss a great genealogy blog post? Tell me! I am currently reading posts from over 1350 genealogy bloggers using Google Reader, but I still miss quite a few it seems.


Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/02/best-of-genea-blogs-10-to-16-february.html

Copyright(c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver 

6 comments:

John said...

Randy: Thank you for the mention of my post on finding a cousin through blogging -- and for posting among your picks for this week one by the very cousin I discovered. Your readers will have to do some surfing to see which of your picks I mean. :-)

John said...

Oops, I read too quickly, the Heather you mentioned is NOT Heather Wilkinson Rojo. Sorry for any confusion. I need to read more slowly or more carefully. :-)

GeniAus said...

Thanks, Randy, for sharing the links to our posts about the Unlock the Past Cruise. It;s now Day 9 and our brains are near to exploding from all the information we are being fed. So many fellow cruisers are already signing up for the next UTP cruise on 4th February next year.

GeneJ said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
GeneJ said...

Thanks for the mention, Randy. You asked, Why? Ha, I didn't think my request was going to turned down!

Judy G. Russell had done such a good job of laying out the issues. I wondered at the time how family historians could realistically comply with the terms. I know I cue off that 1923 date about copyright, and think I am reasonable about the volumes I download, etc. I have to wonder how many folks would think it was irresponsible if a family historians did NOT archive news clippings?

The discussion during the webinar at least suggested it might not be as bad as my impression. My notes read, "TOS - just ask."

Thinking any clarity on the issue would make for a good blog article, I decided to make a request. As above, I didn't expect that request to be rejected out of hand.

On a more serious note, we are a community of content creators. We blog, post, etc. I suspect most GeneaBloggers would agree with me, I don't want to feel the content I create violates someone else's rights. If the whole matter had come out differently (if GB had been even vaguely reasonable), that would have been my take.

Taking it one step further, we really do have to understand "rights" from the standpoint of the genealogical model.

Mean while back at the ranch .. I worked today on some "alternatie graphics," so there is another post in the works.

Tracing Ancestors, an a3Genealogy Partner said...

Randy,
Thanks for including the a3Gen post. These kind of searches are fun and rewarding.